from the Sunday Times Magazine in 2011

December 4th, 2011

Watching The Detectives

The coppers in Manchester’s murder squad have seen it all and plenty of it they’d rather forget. David James Smith joins the investigators trying to solve a fatal shooting. As the gruesome picture emerges he witness the trials and tribulations of dealing with random violence and death every day.

read it at www.sundaytimes.co.uk

November 13th, 2011

“A marriage breaker? That just isn’t the daughter I know.”

Claudia Lawrence, a shy young chef, simply disappeared more than two years ago. In their desperate search for clues, were the police right to concentrate on Claudia’s “complicated” love life?

read it at www.sundaytimes.co.uk

September 4th, 2011

And they leapt into the unknown

Their last moments were watched around the world. But the subject of the 9/11 “jumpers” has proved so painful and unsettling that, a decade on, few in America are willing to mention them. Why have they been sidelined from history? Investigation by David James Smith

read it at www.sundaytimes.co.uk

August 28th, 2011

The secret torments of  John Galliano

John Galliano’s anti-semitic outburst in a Paris cafe cost him the top job in fashion. He had already lost his closest friend and colleague, Steven Robinson. The sordid reality of Steven’s death and its impact on the designer has gone unreported — until now. David James Smith investigates

read it at www.sundaytimes.co.uk

March 3, 2011

Misshapen identity

Our writer’s personal journey on uncovering the lies surrounding the case of the James Bulger killer Jon Venables.

Jon Venables, one of Britain’s most notorious murderers, is now back in jail on child pornography charges. David James Smith, the writer who has followed his life from boy to man, tells the full story of his chaotic ‘rehabilitation’ — and how he uncovered the sex scandal surrounding Venables’ care.

read online at The Times website

NEWS AND EVENTS

Latest News

  • The Sleep Of Reason – The James Bulger Case by David James Smith:
    Faber Finds edition with new preface, available September 15th, 2011.

  • Young Mandela the movie – in development.

    From The Guardian
    Read the article

    In the Diary column of The Independent, April 13th, 2011

    More on my previously unsubstantiated claim that the writer-director Peter Kosminsky, creator of The Promise, is working on a drama about Nelson Mandela. I’ve now learnt that the project is a feature film, in development with Film 4, about the young Mandela. Kosminsky is currently at work on the script and, given the complaints about the anti-Jewish bias of The Promise, it is unlikely to be a standard bland portrait of the former South African president.

Latest Review

    New York Times – J. M. Ledgard

  • Nelson Mandela was circumcised as a 16-year-old boy alongside a flowing river in the Eastern Cape. The ceremony was similar to those of other Bantu peoples. An elder moved through the line making ring-like cuts, and foreskins fell away. The boys could not so much as blink; it was a rite of passage that took you beyond pain. read full review

See David James Smith…

Jon Venables: What Went Wrong
BBC 1, 10.35
Thursday, April 21st, 2011